This is collection is herbal & travel illuminati— not the warped, elitist myth of the modern era, but the original Latin root: those who notice what others overlook.  It’s about attention, perception, and the quiet and cold discipline of awareness.

Travel cultivates this capacity. Moving through cultures different from our own, living inside contrast, embracing juxtaposition, stepping into unfamiliar rhythms and rules — it creates discomfort just sharp enough to wake the senses. That edge trains noticing, expands perception, and makes real growth possible.

Winter works the same way. Cold, darkness, stillness — a near hibernation, a time for inward reflection and energy gathering beneath the surface. Winter’s pressure creates a narrowing that turns attention inward, the same way it readies the ground for renewal. What emerges is clarity, shaped by the hard and cold.

This collection carries that clarity forward, nudging imagination toward the passages and places that illuminate us— so we see more, dream more, and move through the world with greater attunement. It honors those who choose movement as a way of being and seeing.

The brilliance of this collection comes from deep within — memories, stories, ingredients, techniques, and flavors shaped by my life in motion.  Movement that formed the language of my herbal artistry and carved a lasting connection to people and places across the world, a fusion that can be difficult to explain but lives with clarity and conviction inside these winter salts. Each offering embedded with distant notions of home, flickers of joyous wandering, like holiday lights illuminating wonder, awe, and love we might otherwise overlook.

Each ingredient meets another like a traveler — cultures, people, and memories crossing not merely to endure, but to spark a new joy or taste that could only exist because they met.

The alchemy of each formula holds its own subtle shifts — an unexpected herb, a pairing once unimagined, a flavor intensified by dark and cold, a spice settling in an unforeseen way. They’re built from contrasts that behave like winter light: brief glints, altered angles, edges that appear or disappear depending on where you stand or how you use them. What they mean to me will differ from what they mean to you — and that’s the point. That’s the reflection. That’s the illuminated paradox.

They’re bold and quiet at once, with layers that stay alive beneath the surface. Hearty winter herbs — rosemary, sage, savory, bay, thyme — give structure and edge. Bright winter citrus cuts through the dark unapologetically, a reminder that some flavors belong everywhere, always. Winter chicory brings a clean, pleasant bitterness and the memory of learning new tastes. Resilient parsley and mint push through the cold, like culture itself, reminding us that what’s deeply rooted always finds a way to rise.

Time-held ingredients — anchovies, preserved lemons, dried herbs — carry the depth of survival and passage woven through winter and travel. Tropical, far-off fruits meet local winter goods, expanding the map of taste and possibility or shared exploration.

Each composition turns the familiar slightly, refracting it into something changed. They carry global movement shaped by the season— small collisions of flavor, quiet paradoxes, subtle shifts that heighten perception. They taste like winter. They taste like place.

My own early collisions — poverty beside majesty, danger beside generosity, harshness beside impossible beauty — didn’t just shape my worldview; they trained my palate. They taught me to sense depth inside tension, softness inside sharpness, brightness inside dark. Contrast not as conflict, but as invitation. That early humility sharpened my perception and keeps it wide, reminding me I’m only ever one part of the whole. This collection shares that wisdom.

Travel cracked me open early. What could have become fracture became foundation. As I befriended contrast, I framed how I understand myself, others, and flavor. These salts taste like the places that affected me — California, Nicaragua, Israel, Istanbul, Greece, Italy, South Africa, Vietnam, Mexico, Tunisia, Peru, New York City, and beyond. They carry cultures that raised me beyond my birthplace, molded around the little girl taken to Nicaragua during the Iran–Contra era, the young woman working in agriculture across Israel and Latin America, and the joyful middle-aged lady who cooked and swam her way across Mediterranean coastlines.

Inside these blends live adaptability, resourcefulness, resilience, and connection across difference — alongside the brightest light I’ve known: the kindness of people whose hardship was beyond what is should be and whose generosity remains my compass, and whose contradictions taught me how to truly see and create.

For those joining in person at this year’s Bubbly Boutique at Lo and Behold, the collection includes two offerings available exclusively in person: Brandenburg Gate Caviar & Raw Bar Salt and The Palladium Acapulco Cognac–Mezcal Sparkle Cubes.
Included with this collection on my blog, My Herbal Roots, is Illuminati Wanderings — a deeper tracing and storytelling of the movements that inspired each offering.

Use generously and creatively.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MY HERBAL SALTS
*Herbal Roots herbal salts are crafted and available seasonally: Spring, Summer, Fall & Winter.

Returns & Refund Policy     |     Herbal Roots Herb Salt Reviews